May 24--St. Croix -- From 9 am to 4 pm, electrical service will be interrupted to approximately 149 customers in Estate Richmond, on St. Croix’s Feeder 1A. The service interruption will allow WAPA’s contractor Haugland Energy to upgrade the current wiring in the Estate Richmond area. Also, approximately 30 customers in the Estate Seven Hills area of St. Croix will experience an electrical service interruption through 6 pm today. WAPA is working to replace four downed utility poles following an incident earlier today.

Press Releases

Commissioning of Generators with Propane as Fuel Source; St. Croix Residents May Experience Intermittent Outages during next Phase of Testing

(Sunday, October 02, 2016)

The Virgin Islands
Water and Power Authority’s conversion to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or propane)
as a primary source of fuel in the generation of electricity will continue next
week and residents may experience intermittent service interruptions during
this phase of testing.

WAPA Executive Director
/ CEO Julio A. Rhymer, Sr. said over the weekend that beginning on Tuesday,
October 4th, residents may experience short-lived service
interruptions as technicians carry out a series of power rejection tests.
“These tests are used to evaluate the unit’s reaction and response to forced
outages or unanticipated drops in load. For the last week and a half, plant
personnel along with technical staff from General Electric and VITOL have been
testing generating Unit 20’s ability to burn propane. All has gone well to
date.”

Rhymer said technical
staff are reviewing data generated each day as the unit burns propane. “They
are fine tuning, analyzing data and increasing the load on the generator while
it burns LPG to test its capabilities. Unit 20 is one of three generators at
the Estate Richmond Power Plant that has been converted from oil as a sole fuel
source to a tri-fuel operation. The other converted units are Units 16 and 17
and we should begin their testing shortly.”

Rhymer said last week
that at one point during the commissioning, Unit 20 was running 100% on propane
producing as much as 20 megawatts of electrical power. “Once the testing is
completed, Unit 20 will continue to burn LPG to power St. Croix and technicians
will shift the focus to commissioning the other units.